The Left Wing Left and The Right’s Wrong
Birds or Nations, One Wingers Can’t Fly
There are problems that only conservatism can resolve and others that demand a liberal approach. Then there are those issues that demand equal parts of each. Having a worldview that’s either leftwing or rightwing is analogous to attempting a cross-country drive by turning the same way at every intersection you encounter — you end up going in circles. A bird with only one working wing soon falls prey to a predator. A nation always leaning left changes too much and gets overwhelmed by the law of unintended consequences. Constant conservatism leads to creeping decay and death by failure to adapt to a constantly changing world.
How does that apply to political parties? Parliamentary systems have issues but are less likely to be hamstrung by partisan bickering. The USA’s two-party system needs two viable parties to avoid the evils of single-party rule. But we humans are wired by evolution to be tribal beasts. With two-party systems like ours, partisan squabbling is inevitable and can lead to political paralysis. Like the kids in the back seat keep repeating, “Are we there yet?”
Maybe so, and here’s why it matters. In a 1960 paper, U.S. cultural anthropologist Elman Rogers Service published “Law of Evolutionary Potential.” He posited that nation-states evolve…
